Why Do Conservatives Eat (some) of their Young?

One of the problems with our government is that it often rewards bad behavior and punishes success. This never works.

Conservatives are fond of pointing this out, so why, in this primary season, are many conservatives punishing the good behavior of one of the candidates. We have lost our way and, as a result, the GOP presidential nomination likely will go to one of the most liberal candidates.
This must stop!

We are the party that stands for high moral principles. We constantly make the case for those principles in order to attract converts and, when we get one, we kick him in the teeth.

(Please note: I have not endorsed a candidate in the presidential race. On Tuesday, I cast a ballot for the man I believe will make the best president and I trust my readers to do their own research and do the same.)

However, I have become alarmed, that many of the tools voters use are biased. The way many have treated Mitt Romney is shameful.

Romney campaigned as a social liberal in his failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat and when he ran for governor. However, in 2004, he supported a federal marriage amendment and last year, before his run for the White House, he announced that he had changed his mind on the abortion issue and is pro-life.

It may simply have been for politically expediency. We have no way of knowing, but this was HUGE! It should have been a cause for celebration, but no! Liberal groups sought to punish him for it and, sadly, a number of conservative groups have done the same.

A number of voter guides (particularly those from “Christian” groups) chose to highlight Romney’s pro-choice record as governor, with no mention of his recent conversion on social issues. If a social conservative used one of these guides, Mr. Romney was not even considered.

Now ask yourself, if Mr. Romney had governed as a conservative on social issues and then announced that he had changed his mind, would these same groups have based their guilds solely on the past record of this candidate. I think not!

Some columnists are equally guilty. I jumped on the anti Mitt bandwagon by dubbing him the “Stepford” candidate. Columnists are free to endorse and make a case for a candidate. However, some have gone to great extremes to mislead their readers. On January 29, Andrew Longman wrote a column “Mitt or Huck: Who’s more conservative?” Mr. Longman used tables from the Tax Foundation to make a case that Mr. Huckabee was the more conservative, fiscally, which is not the case.

Mr. Longman tried to fool us by comparing the total tax burden faced by citizens in those two states while these men held the office of governor.

In Arkansas, workers, on average, make much less than they do in more affluent Massachusetts. Therefore, the overall tax burden (federal and state) on a citizen in Massachusetts is much higher. The relevant figures are the state and local tax burden, which Mr. Longman was willing to overlook. Yes, the overall tax burden on Arkansans went up by only four tenths of one percent in the ten years Mr. Huckabee was governor of Arkansas because his tax increases had a depressing effect on business and earnings, as tax increases always do.

When Mr. Huckabee took office, Arkansans faced the 30th highest state and local tax burden (1 being highest) of any state. When Mr. Huckabee left office, they faced the 13th highest tax burden. That’s a huge jump!

Huckabee now is campaigning as a fiscal conservative. Again, we have no way of knowing if his conversion on this issue is real or simply a case of political expediency. We should take him at his word.

Perhaps most disturbing is the way Mr. Romeny has been skewered for his successful business career and for financing his own campaign.

Let’s face it, the average voter sees no need to help the campaign of a multi-millionaire. Successful people, who understand how someone like Romney could help straighten out a country that is going broke, were prevented from writing hefty checks due to our misguided campaign laws. Romney was virtually unknown outside of the state of Massachusetts so he put his own money on the line to make his case. That is commendable!

We are the party that celebrates free enterprise! It made us the land of opportunity.

The important lesson for conservatives for this and all other elections is that we must hold every candidate to the same standard. More importantly, we cannot expect more political converts, when we fail to recognize those conversions.

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14 thoughts on “Why Do Conservatives Eat (some) of their Young?”

I’m not afraid of terrorists. I voted for Ron Paul. The ONLY conservative in the race. Any candidate who wants to take my money to pay for health care for another person isn’t a conservative. That’s just one point.

I appreciate your attempt to explain this, but in the spirit of debate, I must contest. To be fair, I don’t see a whole lot of difference in fiscal policy between the candidates, but Huckabee has taken an unfair amount of bashing by conservative pundits, so I will defend him.

You cannot accuse another person of spinning the facts when you are guilty of doing the same thing.

Let’s look at the bottom line, local-state tax increases.

It is true that Arkansas did see a higher increase in state taxes than did Massachusetts, but that’s not the bottom line.

Mike Huckabee was governor for 10 years, Mitt Romney was only in office for 4 years. If you look at local-state tax increases year-by-year, you will find that the average tax increase per year under Mitt Romney in Massachusetts was .2%. By comparison, the average tax increase per year during Huckabee’s governorship was .1%.

It appears I have made a mistake. The numbers should be .15% for Romney and .12% for Huckabee, which is not much of a difference. But it’s annoying that conservatives are calling Huckabee fiscally liberal, while touting Romney as fiscally conservative.

This was refreshing. All the news I have seen chastises Mitt for using his own money. In doing so, he demonstrates his determination and commitment. There is merit in the thought that people have of not giving to a ‘rich’ contender. Would that Hillary were treated the same–with her net worth being given every time she is shown anywhere doing anything. That only happens with Mitt. Not Edwards, no one else. One discussion group did switch to discussing how he looked rich and didn’t connect with voters, etc. This was on the fair network. Just because they are so against Mitt and for McCain makes me suspicious. It was revealed only today or yesterday that Thompson is as liberal as McCain. Where was this news for the last three months? I feel Americans are not being given the whole news, just what others want to give us. It is biased propaganda much of the time. It is disgusting. I am aware of it and fed up. Voters want real information on those running, not what we are getting from the liberal outlets or even the fair one.

So, now ROMNEY steps out of the race because of Huckabee, who never ever had a chance to win a national election, splitting the conservative vote…which leaves us with McCain..the fake conservative.

Now listen to all the complaining from the same people who created this problem. We now will have the choice of two democats this fall…thanks to the likes of Farah and janet folger. They have finished what bush started…the destruction of the conservative base.

I am all for allowing and letting people change thier minds. However, when the change of mind comes during a presidential election race for the Republican nomination we have a right to be skeptical. I need to see some time supporting and working for conservative causes when he isn’t running for President before I buy into his conversion.

Oh yeah, Huckabee has no chance to win a general election, but somehow Mitt “Apostle Paul” Romney has a chance? Romney has no chance to win a general election, at any time. He is a fake and a phony. You people will believe anyone with good looks and deep pockets. Why don’t you look into who actually enforced gay marriage in Massachusetts? You will find that it was neither the courts nor the legislature. It was Mitt Romney.

I absolutely distrust any who have a conversion experience during or immediately prior to their run for office. We know from experience that many change after getting in office anyway. Only those with firm, longstanding convictions to principles for which we are in agreement seem to be the candidates we want. Dream on, huh?

Obviously, columnists, bloggers and all who diligently read the same are better informed than the average dummy on the street. Since the well informed have trouble keeping current, how will voters who catch an occassional sound bite be expected to vote for the right candidate?

As one of our founders said, (I paraphrase) the republican form of government is only good when honorable men are elected. S

1) Anyone who believes in creationism is an uneducated, ignorant ideologue who obviously doesn’t have the judgment to head a PTA committee, much less be the president of the United States.

2) “abstinence only” sexual education has been shown time and time again to increase rates of unplanned pregnancy and transmission of STDs

3) Republicans are hardly the moral authority, if that itself could ever exist. Without going into detail regarding the philosophical debate of an absolute morality, They cherry-pick doctrine from ancient mythical texts like the Christian bible that happen to fit their rigid, discriminatory world view. They then use this framework to focus church-goers on dividing society along ideological division, instead of attempting to create a harmonious whole.
For being followers of Jesus, I sure don’t see many conservatives spending their time helping our nations poor and disenfranchised, supporting social programs, raising money for the sick and starving, supporting action to save God’s earth, etc.
All i see is saber rattling about lowering taxes to maintain wealth, upholding wars of aggression, spreading scientific misinformation, and supporting state discrimination of homosexuals.

I think it’s time for the conservative base to take a good look in the mirror and really ask themselves, “WHAT WOULD JESUS DO”.. because he sure wouldn’t be supporting the republican party.

Jailhouuse conversions are never sincere, and Romney was getting ready to stand before the judgement of voters. if it’s not sincere, then he’s a lying w—-. If it is sincere then he’s too slow witted to be president. Most of us understand that abortion is murder at a relatively young age, Mitt didn’t understand it at 45. And now we are supposed to believe he’s a convert at 55? Welcome to the club, Mitt, but you have to sit in the back until you’ve proved your worth.

I saw your rant about fur – okay, I agree that PETA can go overboard, but their point is, why kill for fashion? It’s so darn vain. I’m not a vegetarian, but I would never ever wear fur. Kill an animal to look good? Excuse me? Have we learned NOTHING in school?

For those of you who would like to check out this “rant” it’s under “Animal Rights” on the home page.

To Anna,

Let me get this straight. In your view, some animals are worth more than others. Anything with fur, should be protected. Any animal without it is fair game. In your economy it’s a beauty contest. Interesting, most of the animals we use for food: cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are harmless creatures, while that fox that was used to make my jacket, eats other animals — in fact, it viciously tears them apart, while the poor creatures are still alive.

Why wear fur to keep warm? Unlike all the fake stuff, it last for years and then biodegrades. In other words, it helps the planet!

I would LOVE to talk about fur, but I believe the only fur in Jane’s original column was flying between conservatives and… uh, conservatives. So I’ll try to steer things back, if that’s okay.

The problem I see in the Republican party is that for the better part of three decades, the GOP has hitched its wagon to the lumbering butt of the conservative movement. As long as that the two were moving in the same direction, no problems. However, the road is changing up ahead.

The vital block of 18-35 year-old voters are increasingly rejecting extreme conservatism, according to several studies (see the latest Pew Research Center and Rasmussen polls for examples.) The 2006 election was a disaster for the conservative movement and the Republican party for that simple reason, and the nation’s attitudes don’t seem to be swinging back. The Republican party, seeing itself becoming more and more irrelevant, has essentially engineered the primary election of John McCain, a relative moderate and the only GOP candidate with a chance of beating any Democrat at all, as the GOP’s candidate (for example, Guliani’s rewriting of the rules in large states to make winner-take-all contests, and the to-say-the-least over-enthusiastic calling of McCain as the winner of the Washington state primary.) For the first time in three decades, the conservative movement isn’t calling the shots.

This reversal of tradition has caused the conservative movement to essentially threaten to take its ball and bat and go home. I find it ironic that the Clinton-Obama spit-fight has been compared to the McGovern-Johnson debacle, when in fact McCain’s nomination threatens to split the GOP in exactly that way.

BTW, my refernce to McCain as a relative moderate was quite deliberate. It is a sensational symptom of the extremity of the conservative movement in general and the GOP in particular that someone like McCain could be, in any possible world, be considered a liberal.